50 years later, is Head Start still necessary?

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May 19, 2015, 3:43 p.m.

50 years later, is Head Start still necessary?

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50 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the creation of Head Start, a government program that would affect millions of children for years to come. Head Start was founded during the War on Poverty in an effort to better prepare low-income children for school. The program enrolls thousands of children each year in preschool programs designed to ease the transition to kindergarten. More than 30 million children have participated in Head Start since its founding. Darren Walker, who participated in Head Start’s first year, said the program changed his life. “It allowed me to begin to imagine, to think about the world outside of my environment and to think creatively about what my life might be,” he said. But some critics have raised questions about whether Head Start still works. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found little evidence that Head Start left lasting benefits for the children who participated. Head Start worked when it first came to several low-income counties in the South, but today its success is questionable, said Russ Whitehurst, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. In 2011, President Obama made Head Start programs more accountable for providing quality services. This year, the program received approximately $8 billion in government funding. Yasmina Vinci, executive director of the National Head Start Association, said that the program has many success stories. “We see the children who are now graduating from high school and getting scholarships, staying in school, not dropping out of high school,” Vinci said.